Keygan Lund, 11, of Morgan was out with his friends last Saturday afternoon, searching for minnows in Purgatory Creek west of Franklin. Two of Keygan’s friends — Jake Edwards, 14, and Nick Utz, 15 — were in town, visiting from Elk River, and they needed bait for the Catfish Derby Days fishing contest. Along with another friend, Jason Berberich, 11, of Springfield, they were trolling through the rocks and mud along the riverbanks, seeing what they could find. “We’ve walked by that space many times, and never noticed anything strange about the rocks,” Keygan said last week. Then he noticed something odd about one rock, half-buried in the mud. It appeared to have horns. “I saw something weird in the mud, picked it up, and put it in the water to wash it,” Keygan said this week. The boys took it home, and this week consulted with Scott Larson, who took them to the Redwood County Museum for a comparison. At Larson’s recommendation, the boys visited Roland Columbus of the Lower Sioux Community. Columbus, who has a similar skull on display in his home, was able to confirm it as a buffalo skull. How long has the skull been there in the mud of Purgatory Creek? No one knows. As for the skull itself, the boys say they haven’t decided what they’ll do with it. However, it will probably find its home in a local museum.